Government With The People

King Pushing To Take Government Out Of Everyday Life

April 6, 2012

Steve King's message was simple in a campaign stop at Iowa Lakes Community College in Emmetsburg on Tuesday. "I want the federal government to keep its' hands out of my everyday life, just like you."

For King, who is running for election in the 39 counties comprising the newly-created Fourth District of Iowa, governmental intrusion into daily life of citizens is best evidenced by Obamacare, where provisions will require individual Americans to purchase health insurance.

"In this upcoming election, I see the primary issue being the 100 percent repeal of all aspects of Obamacare," King said. "I attended the Supreme Court arguments last week on Obamacare and through what I heard in the form of questions, and saw in body language, I would predict that the Supreme Court will find it unconstitutional, including the individual mandate to buy health insurance. We won't know that decision until June, but that is my feeling."

King, who has been representing 32 counties in the Western District of Iowa since 2002, noted that the American People have to rise up and let their elected lawmakers know their feelings on the Obamacare issue.

"I remember reading the Colliers' magazines from the late 1940's when Great Britain was establishing socialized medicine, and those articles predicted the same kind of worries that we are seeing now," King said. "In fact, England is now beginning to move towards more and more privatization of health care, due to the same reasons, and they're beginning to ask us why we want to go down that road."

The second major issue of the election in King's opinion deals with the budget. "Our government must pass a Constitutional Amendment to require a balanced federal budget. We have seen three straight years of budgets with $1 trillion deficits, and the President's most recent budget called for a deficit of $1.33 Trillion. No one in the House of Representatives voted to approve that budget," King stated. "You cannot deficit spend indefinitely in your family, you can't deficit spend indefinitely in your business and you can't deficit spend indefinitely in your government. At some point, you have to make it up. We're heading down the same road as Greece, but there are countries out there to bail them out. No one can bail the U.S. out because our economy is too big. The deficit spending simply must stop."

King addressed the need to continue to support and champion the cause of renewable fuels in the nation. King noted that in 2002, sales in Iowa for livestock and grains was $12 billion and Ag lands were valued at $60 billion. Just eight years later, sales of livestock and grain had risen to $24 billion and Ag lands had risen to $150 billion.

"Today, our ag lands have risen 34 percent and are now valued at over $200 billion. We simply need to defend and support our renewable energy programs and agriculture," King said. "I like the idea of more market access for renewable fuels, blender pumps and flex fuel vehicles and we need to continue to support all those efforts. It's proven that ethanol can compete with other fuels if we can get it market access. Right now, 24 percent of all the gallons of fuel burned in vehicles in our country are ethanol. That's a great start, but it can and should be much higher."

King, who will face Christie Vilsack in the election for the Fourth District seat, says the election will be one of the top five Congressional races in the country. "I'll tell you that there are already three super PAC's supporting my opponent in this election and it will end up being the most expensive campaign in Iowa history. And, along the way, I'm sure I'll learn lots of things about me that I didn't even know. I just find it very interesting that people will intentionally misrepresent you to a voter, and then they turn around and ask you to trust them and vote for them. To me, that's a stretch."